November 30, 2022 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Dr. Martin Couney carried a secret with him, but the results are unimpeachable. It was Coney Island in the early 1900’s. Beyond the Four-Legged Woman, the sword swallowers, and “Lionel the Lion-Faced Man,” was an entirely different exhibit: rows of tiny, premature human babies living in glass incubators. Here to tell the story is Dawn Raffel, author of The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
And we continue here on our American stories. John Raffle
was a fiction editor for many years. Raffle's most recent book,
The Strange Case of Doctor Cooney, How a mysterious European
showman saved thousands of American babies. Let's take a listen
to this wonderfully unique American story. I spent about four
(00:36):
years going down a rabbit hole of research to find
out what was the deal with one of the strangest
stories in American medical history. So early in the twentieth century,
if you were to go to Coney Island, the People's
Playground also known affectionately as Sodom by the Sea for
(00:57):
its high jinks, or if you were to go to
Atlantic City, which at the time was America's honeymoon capital,
or if you were to go to say a theme
park in Chicago or Minneapolis, you would pass an exhibit
that would say infant incubators with real living babies, and
(01:17):
there would be a barker outside and you could pay
a quarter to go see living premature babies being cared
for in incubators. So when I first stumbled across this,
I thought, how is this even possible? Is this the
most crazy exploitation of human life. Is this like commodification
(01:39):
of babies? Well, it turned out to be even stranger
than that. There was almost no care for premature babies
available in American hospitals at that time. So if somebody
had a baby and a tiny one two or three pounds,
their best hope was to take the baby home and
maybe wrap in blankets, keep it warm next to the
(02:02):
oven or the fire, and hope for the best. And
often the best was not very good. Along came this man,
doctor Martin Arthur Cooney, who was behind all of these
side shows. Who was he? He claimed that he was
a European doctor, that he had trained in Leipzig in
(02:24):
Berlin that would have been some of the best medical
training in the world at that time. And then he
was the protege of a great French doctor who was
conveniently dead at the time that Martin Cooney was making
these claims, And that he then came to the United
States for the very first time in eighteen ninety eight
(02:45):
for the Omaha World's Fair to show this new technology,
the infant incubator. Now his story becomes very odd because apparently,
according to him, he was just seized with the desire
to relocate across an ocean. Seriously, why once you've seen
(03:06):
Omaha you can never return to Paris. I think I
will give up my really prestigious institutional affiliation with one
of the world's great doctors in France so that I
can practice medicine on Coney Island next to the shoot,
the shoots and the alligator Boy. Okay, it's not too
(03:27):
much of a spoiler to say Martin Cooney really wasn't
a real doctor. However, he knew how to say premies
and he was willing to do it when the medical
establishment really couldn't and wouldn't do it. So here's this
guy who actually did pick up a European protocol. He
(03:47):
hired fantastic nurses, and let me tell you, in a
neonatal ICEU, the nurses are always the secret sauce that
has a lot to do with whether or not the
babies survive. He had these great machines, the new incubators.
He also offered the most meticulous care, very low nurse
(04:09):
to patient ratio. Insistent on feeding these babies breast milk
only if the mother couldn't provide it, He hired wet nurses.
The premises were immaculate. He was a big believer in
really loving these babies, love them, hug them, show them,
real human care. This was very much at odds with
(04:30):
anything that was available in the hospitals for a long time.
At the time, the hospitals really didn't have the resources
to have enough equipment. They didn't have enough nurses, they
didn't have enough space. Hospitals were sometimes not all that clean.
They couldn't afford to hire wet nurses. They would feed
the babies formula that was not as successful. So here
(04:54):
is this doctor Cooney, fake doctor, saving children over the
years by the desperately trying to persuade the medical establishment.
And yes, admittedly, because this guy was charging admission to
the public, he was becoming very wealthy himself. I don't
really think he saw a conflict between doing good and
(05:17):
his own personal self interest. There were people who faulted
him for that, but he continued, and you would think
the medical establishment would catch on and say, hey, you know,
here's this guy. He's getting real results. He's saving eighty
five percent of these children who should be considered pretty
much doomed. However, there were a few things going on,
(05:40):
one of which unfortunately, was the American eugenics movement, which
was really about taking the new science of genetics and
using it to try to manipulate the human gene stock.
It ended up in absolutely horrific abuses, including the involuntary
sterilisation of tens of thousands of Americans and the decision
(06:04):
to sometimes deliberately withhold care from infants who had severe disabilities.
And it didn't directly target premature babies, but it did
cast a shadow over their prospects. There was really a
sense of you know, why do we need to care
for these weaklings, these feeble babies. We have more than
(06:26):
enough hungry mouths to feed. The mother will have another
child and so on. So the resources were just lacking.
Over time, Martin Cooney had one great friend in Chicago,
doctor Julius Hess, and Julius Hess was really everything Martin
Cooney wasn't. He was a real doctor, He did have
real credentials, He was very highly respected, and he began
(06:50):
listening to doctor Cooney, learning from him, taking his practices
into the hospital setting, and desperately desperately struggling for being
struggling to get people to listen to him. He published
the first book on taking care of premies in this
country in nineteen twenty two, in which he dedicated his
book to Doctor Cooney. But something that really turned the
(07:14):
tide was in nineteen thirty three, at the bottom of
the Depression, there was a World's Fair in Chicago. It's
not the famous World's Fair that most people think of
with the ferris wheel and that's featured in the book
Devil in the White City. This was a Depression era
world's Fair and Doctor Cooney and Doctor Has joined forces
(07:35):
to have a big incubator show. It was right out
on the Midway with the side shows and other Midway attractions. Meanwhile,
in the Hall of Science you had a eugenics exhibit,
But the actual work of saving lives was happening on
the Midway, and there was so much publicity for this
particular show that it did begin to turn the tide.
(07:59):
Chicago became the first city with a really unified public
health policy in order to take care of premies. It
would eventually become the model for the rest of the country.
So if we really want to look at it, there
are many people beginning to believe that, yes, you know,
this phony doctor with the sideshow is actually the rightful
(08:22):
father of American neonatology. He saved thousands and thousands of people,
some of them are still alive. I've talked to a
bunch of them. I will tell you not a one
of them feels annoyed that they were displayed in a sideshow,
not a one of them feels like they were exploited
in any way, and not a one of them is
(08:43):
irritated that he wasn't a real doctor. They feel only
gratitude that this man saved their life and they went
on to have wonderful lives and have children and have grandchildren.
Without Martin Cooney, they probably would not be here. So
we sometimes owe a debt to people who work really
(09:04):
far outside the lines, and Martin Cooney is one of them.
Another really interesting thing about doctor Cooney is that when
hospitals began introducing incubators, and it really became very widespread
after World War Two, when American healthcare in general just
got better and better, that first generation of preemies treated
(09:28):
in hospitals with incubators, a great many of them very
sadly went blind and they couldn't understand what was going on.
And Martin Cooney, by that point was already retired, but
they did go to ask him, why is it that
none of the babies you treated lost their eyesight? And frankly,
he really didn't know. Well, he wasn't a doctor, and
(09:51):
nobody knew why this was going on. The truth was
the hospitals were pumping too much oxygen into the machines
that was causing the blindness. And Martin Cooney, although he
pumped oxygen into the machines, it was never as much.
And hey, he was a showman, so he would actually
take the babies out of the machines and show them
off and because of that, because of that, their eyesight
(10:16):
was preserved. So again just a little piece of lost
medical history. And I hope you enjoy the story. Thank you.
And that was Dawn Raffle, And thanks Dawn for that
really interesting story. And so much work is done outside
the boundaries of whatever the establishment thinks in almost any field.
The strange case of doctor Cooney here on our American
(10:41):
Stories
And we continue here on our American stories. John Raffle
was a fiction editor for many years. Raffle's most recent book,
The Strange Case of Doctor Cooney, How a mysterious European
showman saved thousands of American babies. Let's take a listen
to this wonderfully unique American story. I spent about four
(00:36):
years going down a rabbit hole of research to find
out what was the deal with one of the strangest
stories in American medical history. So early in the twentieth century,
if you were to go to Coney Island, the People's
Playground also known affectionately as Sodom by the Sea for
(00:57):
its high jinks, or if you were to go to
Atlantic City, which at the time was America's honeymoon capital,
or if you were to go to say a theme
park in Chicago or Minneapolis, you would pass an exhibit
that would say infant incubators with real living babies, and
(01:17):
there would be a barker outside and you could pay
a quarter to go see living premature babies being cared
for in incubators. So when I first stumbled across this,
I thought, how is this even possible? Is this the
most crazy exploitation of human life. Is this like commodification
(01:39):
of babies? Well, it turned out to be even stranger
than that. There was almost no care for premature babies
available in American hospitals at that time. So if somebody
had a baby and a tiny one two or three pounds,
their best hope was to take the baby home and
maybe wrap in blankets, keep it warm next to the
(02:02):
oven or the fire, and hope for the best. And
often the best was not very good. Along came this man,
doctor Martin Arthur Cooney, who was behind all of these
side shows. Who was he? He claimed that he was
a European doctor, that he had trained in Leipzig in
(02:24):
Berlin that would have been some of the best medical
training in the world at that time. And then he
was the protege of a great French doctor who was
conveniently dead at the time that Martin Cooney was making
these claims, And that he then came to the United
States for the very first time in eighteen ninety eight
(02:45):
for the Omaha World's Fair to show this new technology,
the infant incubator. Now his story becomes very odd because apparently,
according to him, he was just seized with the desire
to relocate across an ocean. Seriously, why once you've seen
(03:06):
Omaha you can never return to Paris. I think I
will give up my really prestigious institutional affiliation with one
of the world's great doctors in France so that I
can practice medicine on Coney Island next to the shoot,
the shoots and the alligator Boy. Okay, it's not too
(03:27):
much of a spoiler to say Martin Cooney really wasn't
a real doctor. However, he knew how to say premies
and he was willing to do it when the medical
establishment really couldn't and wouldn't do it. So here's this
guy who actually did pick up a European protocol. He
(03:47):
hired fantastic nurses, and let me tell you, in a
neonatal ICEU, the nurses are always the secret sauce that
has a lot to do with whether or not the
babies survive. He had these great machines, the new incubators.
He also offered the most meticulous care, very low nurse
(04:09):
to patient ratio. Insistent on feeding these babies breast milk
only if the mother couldn't provide it, He hired wet nurses.
The premises were immaculate. He was a big believer in
really loving these babies, love them, hug them, show them,
real human care. This was very much at odds with
(04:30):
anything that was available in the hospitals for a long time.
At the time, the hospitals really didn't have the resources
to have enough equipment. They didn't have enough nurses, they
didn't have enough space. Hospitals were sometimes not all that clean.
They couldn't afford to hire wet nurses. They would feed
the babies formula that was not as successful. So here
(04:54):
is this doctor Cooney, fake doctor, saving children over the
years by the desperately trying to persuade the medical establishment.
And yes, admittedly, because this guy was charging admission to
the public, he was becoming very wealthy himself. I don't
really think he saw a conflict between doing good and
(05:17):
his own personal self interest. There were people who faulted
him for that, but he continued, and you would think
the medical establishment would catch on and say, hey, you know,
here's this guy. He's getting real results. He's saving eighty
five percent of these children who should be considered pretty
much doomed. However, there were a few things going on,
(05:40):
one of which unfortunately, was the American eugenics movement, which
was really about taking the new science of genetics and
using it to try to manipulate the human gene stock.
It ended up in absolutely horrific abuses, including the involuntary
sterilisation of tens of thousands of Americans and the decision
(06:04):
to sometimes deliberately withhold care from infants who had severe disabilities.
And it didn't directly target premature babies, but it did
cast a shadow over their prospects. There was really a
sense of you know, why do we need to care
for these weaklings, these feeble babies. We have more than
(06:26):
enough hungry mouths to feed. The mother will have another
child and so on. So the resources were just lacking.
Over time, Martin Cooney had one great friend in Chicago,
doctor Julius Hess, and Julius Hess was really everything Martin
Cooney wasn't. He was a real doctor, He did have
real credentials, He was very highly respected, and he began
(06:50):
listening to doctor Cooney, learning from him, taking his practices
into the hospital setting, and desperately desperately struggling for being
struggling to get people to listen to him. He published
the first book on taking care of premies in this
country in nineteen twenty two, in which he dedicated his
book to Doctor Cooney. But something that really turned the
(07:14):
tide was in nineteen thirty three, at the bottom of
the Depression, there was a World's Fair in Chicago. It's
not the famous World's Fair that most people think of
with the ferris wheel and that's featured in the book
Devil in the White City. This was a Depression era
world's Fair and Doctor Cooney and Doctor Has joined forces
(07:35):
to have a big incubator show. It was right out
on the Midway with the side shows and other Midway attractions. Meanwhile,
in the Hall of Science you had a eugenics exhibit,
But the actual work of saving lives was happening on
the Midway, and there was so much publicity for this
particular show that it did begin to turn the tide.
(07:59):
Chicago became the first city with a really unified public
health policy in order to take care of premies. It
would eventually become the model for the rest of the country.
So if we really want to look at it, there
are many people beginning to believe that, yes, you know,
this phony doctor with the sideshow is actually the rightful
(08:22):
father of American neonatology. He saved thousands and thousands of people,
some of them are still alive. I've talked to a
bunch of them. I will tell you not a one
of them feels annoyed that they were displayed in a sideshow,
not a one of them feels like they were exploited
in any way, and not a one of them is
(08:43):
irritated that he wasn't a real doctor. They feel only
gratitude that this man saved their life and they went
on to have wonderful lives and have children and have grandchildren.
Without Martin Cooney, they probably would not be here. So
we sometimes owe a debt to people who work really
(09:04):
far outside the lines, and Martin Cooney is one of them.
Another really interesting thing about doctor Cooney is that when
hospitals began introducing incubators, and it really became very widespread
after World War Two, when American healthcare in general just
got better and better, that first generation of preemies treated
(09:28):
in hospitals with incubators, a great many of them very
sadly went blind and they couldn't understand what was going on.
And Martin Cooney, by that point was already retired, but
they did go to ask him, why is it that
none of the babies you treated lost their eyesight? And frankly,
he really didn't know. Well, he wasn't a doctor, and
(09:51):
nobody knew why this was going on. The truth was
the hospitals were pumping too much oxygen into the machines
that was causing the blindness. And Martin Cooney, although he
pumped oxygen into the machines, it was never as much.
And hey, he was a showman, so he would actually
take the babies out of the machines and show them
off and because of that, because of that, their eyesight
(10:16):
was preserved. So again just a little piece of lost
medical history. And I hope you enjoy the story. Thank you.
And that was Dawn Raffle, And thanks Dawn for that
really interesting story. And so much work is done outside
the boundaries of whatever the establishment thinks in almost any field.
The strange case of doctor Cooney here on our American
(10:41):
Stories
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